Mageia 4 Getting Closer with New Beta

Anne Nicolas announced the release of Mageia 4 Beta 2 this past weekend saying, "Lots of effort was put into fixing the remaining blocking bugs." There are interesting new developments as well all heading for the February 1, 2014 Final release date.

One of the major new features this release is the switch from GTK+ 2 to GTK+ 3. Most of the "Drake" tools have been ported over and "now use more modern components and have access to all widgets." RPM was upgraded to 4.11.1, the kernel was updated to 3.12.3, and Xorg X Server was updated from 1.13 to 1.14.4. Beta 2 also ships with KDE 4.11.3, GNOME 3.10.1, LibreOffice 4.1.3.2, Firefox 24.1, and GCC 4.8.2. Mageia 4 will also feature Kscreen, the new multi-screen management tool for KDE; a new "Newbie How-To"; and systemd device naming. Cinnamon and MATE are in repositories. There is no new artwork integrated yet, but the freeze was a month ago, so perhaps in the RC.

Downloads for Beta 2 begin here. It's available in Classic installation, Live media, and networking install images in 32- and 64-bit varieties. The live images are available in GNOME and KDE flavors. Check the errata, last updated yesterday, before installation for any issues which may effect your situation. There are still a few E17, Windowmaker, and XFCE bugs and the Live ISOs still default to GRUB 2. It appears the bootloader may display "strange characters" during boot.  (It's been fixed in Cauldron as of today though.) If users wish to access system logs, there is a workaround for a bug which prevents that and there are issues upgraders may wish to review as well. Installs from Live DVDs need to chown /home in order for some apps to start and function, so consult the full errata.

The next release is the Release Candidate and is due on January 6, 2014 and, again, the Final is scheduled for February 1, 2014.